Stay at the table
Stay at the table
Stay at the table and pay attention to your players. It sounds obvious, but when your players get involved in a planning session or are simply enjoying role-playing with each other it's tempting to distract yourself. No matter how tempting it is, don't take a nap, don't quick check your email, and don't break out the GameBoy. If your players do need something you need to be instantly available. If you haven't been paying attention you'll be caught off guard when they announce, "Okay, we're going to do exactly what we just discussed." Asking them to repeat the plan makes it clear that you don't care. If they feel in the slightest that they are interrupting you they'll get the sense you don't care. If the players think you don't care, they will stop caring. Even if the players are perfectly content to work among themselves for a while you need to keep on top of their plans and their moods. You need to pay attention to correct erroneous beliefs about the game world. (See players must understand your universe for more on this.) You need to intervene if they make erroneous assumptions about the world, if they begin to stall, or they're just getting unhappy. To do all of these things, you need to stay aware of what they are doing.
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